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PROCEEDINGS OF THE JOINT CONVENTION 



■V- 



N E V ADA LEG I SLAT 1 1 R E, 



UKLD ON 



JANUARY S3d, 1873. 



AT.Sci, T1IK 



ADDRESS OF SENATOR JOHN P. JONES. 



THEJSI DELIVERED; 




\sMy _, 



C A RSON C I T Y : 
CHARLES A. V. PUTNAM, STATE PRINTER 

187:;. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE JOINT CONVENTION 



NEVADA LEGISLATURE, 



V 



JANUARY 22d, 1873. 



% 

ALSO, THE 



ADDRESS OF SENATOR JOHN P. JONES, 



THEN DELIVERED. 



• Nib 



Ordered printed by Concurrent Resolution, by unanimous vote, in 
both Houses. 



PROCEEDINGS OF JOINT CONVENTION 



ADDRESS OF SENATOR J. P. JONES. 



SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION EELATIVE TO PRINT- 
ING PROCEEDINGS OF JOINT CONVENTION. 

Resolved by tbe Senate, the Assembly concurring, That two thousand 
five hundred copies of the proceedings of tbe Senate and Assembly 
relating to the election of United States Senator, together witb the 
remarks of the Hon. J. P. Jones before tbe Joint Convention of tbe two 
Houses, be printed in pamphlet form; one thousand copies for the use of 
the Senate, fifteen hundred copies for the use. of the Assembl} - . 

Passed the Senate January twenty-third, eighteen hundred and sev- 
enty-three. Ayes, 19; noes, 5. 

T. A. WATERMAN, 

Assistant Secretary. 

Passed the Assembly January twenty-third, eighteen hundred and 
seventy -three. Ayes, 43; noes, 2. 

J. M. WOODWORTH, 

Assistant Clerk. 



[Extract from Journal of Senate. .] 

IN SENATE— SIXTEENTH DAY. 

Carson City, January 21st, 1873. 

Senate met at eleven o'clock, pursuant to adjournment. 
President in the chair. 



Roll called, and full Senate present. 
. Mr. Stevenson offered the following 

RESOLUTION. 

Whereas: An Act of Congress entitled an Act to regulate the time 
and manner of holding elections of United States Senators in Congress, 
approved July, A. D. eighteen hundred and sixty-six, declares that each 
House shall openly, by a viva voce vote of each member present, 
name one person for Senator in Congress; therefore be it 

Resolved, That the Senate do proceed to vote viva voce for an United 
States Senator, in accordance with tbe provisions of said Act, on to-day, 
at twelve o'clock m., to represent this State in the United States Senate. 

Adopted. 

At twelve o'clock m., the President announced that the time had 
arrived, according to the resolution adopted by the Senate, for the elec- 
tion of an United States Senator. 

The Secretary of the Senate then read the law of Congress apper- 
taining to the election of United States Senator. 

Mr. Stevenson placed in nomination John P. Jones, of Storey County. 

Mr. McClinton, of Esmeralda County, seconded the nomination. 

Mr. Cassidj^, of Lander County, nominated William W. McCoy, of 
Lander County. 

Mr. Cleveland, of White Pine County, nominated Hon. Charles E. 
DeLong. 

The roll was called, and the vote announced as follows: 

Eor John P. Jones — Messrs. Campbell, Clapp, Crawford, Davenport, 
Eastman, Hazlett, Hobart, Lockwood, McClinton, Moore, Phelan, Small, 
Stevenson, Thompson, Varian, and Walter — 16. 

For W. W. McCoy — Messrs. Cassidy, Fox, Hill, Mills, McBeth, and 
Wilson— 6. 

For Charles E. DeLong — Mr. Cleveland — 1. 

For Robert McBeth— Mr. McCoy— 1. 

Adjourned. 

FRANK DENVER, President. 

Attest: Charles F. Bicknell, 

Secretary of the Senate. 



[Extract from Journal of the House.} 
By Mr. Crawford: 

Whereas, An Act of Congress to regulate the time and manner of 
holding elections of United States Senators in Congress, approved July 
twenty-fifth, A. D. eighteen hundred and sixty-six, declares that each 
House shall openly, by a viva voce vote of each member present, name 
one person for Senator in Congress; therefore be it 

Resolved, That the Assembly do proceed to vote viva voce for a United 
States Senator in accordance with the proivsions of said Act, at twelve 



o'clock m. to-day, Tuesday, the twenty-first day of July, eighteen hun- 
dred and seventy-three. 

Resolution adopted. 

Twelve o'clock M., the Speaker announced that the hour had arrived 
for the special order, which was the election of a United States Senator, 
ami that nominations were in order. 

Mr. Morrison nominated Hon. J. P. Jones. 

Mr. Owen seconded the nominal ion. 

Mr. Shoaff nominated Major W. W. McCoy. The nomination was sec- 
onded by Mr. Street. 

No further nominations being made, the Speaker declared nominations 
closed, and the roll being called, resulted as follows: 

For J. P. Jones — Messrs. Adams, Andrews, Arnold, Brunner, Carpenter, 
Craig, Crawford, Dangberg, Derby, Drake, Elzy, Fox, Gallagher, Grey, 
Hart, Hoppin, Horton, Keyser, Lyman, Mack, McCall, Morrison, Owen, 
Prague, Price, Randall, Rickey, Robinson, Sessions, Shepperd, Smith, 
Stern, Stoddard, Tobriner, Twiss, Wilson, and Mr. Speaker — 37. 

For Major W. W. McCoy — Messrs. Allen, Burgess, Cole, Lemmon, Mat- 
thews, Sanford, Savage, Shoaff, Street, Vinnedge, and Wallace — 11. 

Under the provisions of the Act of Congress in relation to the elec- 
tion of United States Senator the vote was not announced. 

On motion of Mr. Grey, at twelve o'clock and fifteen minutes p. m. 
the House adjourned. 



IN JOINT CONVENTION. 

At twelve o'clock M., January twenty-second, eighteen hundred and 
seventy -three, the Senate and Assembly met in Joint Convention in pur- 
suance with the law of Congress, and were called to order by Hon. 
Frank Denver, President of the Senate. 

The rolls of the Senate and Assembly were called by the Secretary 
and Clerk of each House respectively. 

All members present. 

The President announced that the object for which they were assem- 
bled was to declare the action of each House had on the preceding day 
in regard to the election of a United States Senator. 

The Journal of each House appertaining to the election of Senator was 
then read by the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the Assembly 
respectively, and it appearing from the Journals of the two Houses that 
a majority of the votes of each House had been cast for John P. Jones, 
tiie President then declared John P. Jones duly elected United States 
Senator from the State of Nevada, for the term of six years from the 
fourth day of March next, to succeed the Hon. James W. ^yo- 

Mr. Lockwood offered the following resolution: 

Resolved, That a committee of five, two from the Senate and three 
from the Assembly, be appointed by the President and Speaker to wait 
upon the Hon. John P. Jones and inform him of his election to the oilice 
of United States Senator for the State of Nevada. 

Adopted. 



The President appointed as such committee on the part of the Senate 
Messrs. Lock wood and McCoy. 

The Speaker of the Assembly appointed as such committee on the 
part of the House, Messrs. Morrison, Sessions, and Crawford. 

The committee appointed to wait upon the Hon. J. P. Jones in accord- 
ance with the above resolution, presented that gentleman to the Joint 
Convention, who addressed them at length, after which the President 
declared the Convention adjourned sine die. 



Charles F. Bicknell, 

Secretary of Senate. 

A. Whitford, 

Clerk of Assembly. 



FBANK DENVEK, 

President of Senate. 
JOHN BOWMAN, 

Speaker of Assembly. 



ADDRESS OF SENATOR JOHN P. JONES. 



In coming- before the Joint Convention, Mr. Jones delivered the follow- 
ing address: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate and Assembly: 

It is with no ordinary emotions that in response to your most flatter- 
ing call I appear before you. My nature would be cold, indeed, did I 
not feel an honest, even an exultant, pride in the result of the canvass 
for United States Senator, which has culminated in this honorable Legis- 
lature choosing me to represent this young and enterprising common- 
wealth in that high capacity. I am grateful, beyond the power of 
expression, for the honor I have received at your hands. In poverty of 
utterance I can only say that I thank you most sincerely for this dis- 
tinguished token of your favor and trust; and through you I desire to 
extend 1113' grateful acknowledgments to our common constituency, the 
people of Nevada, whose friendly and earnest wishes I believe have 
found faithful expression through your votes and voices to-day. It 
would be affectation in me to deny that I have sought and coveted this 
honor. The ambition was laudable, I trust, which impelled me to aspire 
to it; but I should be guilt} T of disingenuousness did I not confess that 
the popular response to my appeal, and the bestowal of the honor by 
you, have been cordial and generous beyond my expectation or deserv- 
ing. I can find no terms to adequately acknowledge such superfluity of 
favor. My gratitude can only indulge in a repetition of thanks. 

The position to which you have elevated me is one of grave responsi- 
bility and almost perilous exalteduess. The great men of the nation 
have woven around it a spell of genius, eloquence, and grandeur, till, 
like an Olympus, it has seemed a sacred theatre of the gods, tow. 
whose cloud-capped glories the mortal gaze might be reverently lifted, 
but to whose lofty height no ordinary mortal should ever climb. I dis- 
card the myth, and approach it as a place" where honest purpose, com- 
mon sense, unflinching courage, and average abilities Avill be crowned 
with a just degree of success. Conscious, as I am, of a lack of those 
commanding talents and that high mental discipline and culture so 
earnestly to be desired, I yet accept your trust, not without faith in my 
endowments and acquirements, with confidence in my courage, integrity, 
assiduity, and purpose, and with reliance upon my thorough suscepti- 
bility to the impulses and impressions which sway the masses and gravi- 
tate forever toward the general good. 



8 

I might with propriety conclude here, without further trespassing 
upon your time and patience; but I feel that justice to you, to the people 
of Nevada, and to myself, demands that something additional should be 
said, for which I can conceive no more fitting opportunity than the 
present. And in order that my plain, earnest meaning may not be 
warped or misinterpreted through errors of extemporaneous speech or 
by garbled reports, I have committed my remarks to writing, that they 
may serve as an authentic record of my sentiments and declarations, to 
whose truth I solemnly subscribe to-day, and to whose authority I hold 
myself amenable. It has been charged by a portion of the press, and 
whispered about with the deprecating hypocrisy of scandal, till the very 
air has become poisoned with the falsehood, that the recent campaign in 
this State was a corrupt and profligate one. It has been charged that I 
have resorted to vile and reprehensible practices in furtherance of selfish 
designs; that the people bargained away their political principles and 
preferences for less than a mendicant's pittance; that you are the natural 
spawn of this unlawful commerce, and have slavishly set the seal upon 
a dishonorable compact. I blush while I repeat the shameless slanders 
with which wantonness has filled the atmosphere, and which have 
already found currency in a portion of the press east of the Eocky 
Mountains, to the scandal of the State and the reproach of its citizens. 
I have not suffered mypeace to be disquieted by these malevolent voices, 
which float about as busy and anonymous as the whisperings of the 
wind. I stand too firmly poised on the basis of a reproachless con- 
science and the rectitude of my aims, acts, and purposes, for such 
assaults to disturb my equanimity; and I have been silent amid this 
storm of misrepresentation, falsehood, and calumny, knowing that if my 
character and actions did not vindicate me at the bar of intelligent 
public opinion, I should find but poor remedy in protests, replications, 
and rejoinders. But the vindication which slander could not have wrung 
from me on personal account, I feel to be due to you and to the people 
of Nevada who have suffered aspersion through your generosity to me. 
I deny that the recent canvass was corrupt or profligate beyond what 
might be as justly charged against any and every political campaign, 
whether municipal, State, or national, within my memory. Money was 
used, it is true; but generally, so far as I know, by the Central Commit- 
tees of the various counties, and legitimately in the interest of the 
liepublican party, and in presenting clearly to all the true issues involved 
in the campaign. There has not an election gone by since our existence 
as a nation that has not witnessed and sanctioned its like use. They 
who inveigh against political expenditure of this character simply decry 
the inevitable, and incur more than suspicion of their candor or intelli- 
gence. Ln the present instance, the outcry emanates from those who 
invested their money in political venture and encountered defeat, aud 
are now mistaking the pangs of disappointed hopes and ambitions for 
virtuous emotions and honest purposes. Corruption is no necessary 
corollary to the use of money. A sum as vast as our national debt 
might be disbursed, and no one be corrupted. The mere disbursement 
of money is blameless in itself. The purpose, intent, and ett'ect must 
constitute the ott'ense, if any there be. And I deny, so far as these 
charges have been connected with my name, that I have ever sought to 
corrupt a single voter, or that I have ever exacted, or sought to exact, 
or even asked, a pledge of political support from any member of this 
honorable Legislature, or that I have ever exacted or asked a pledge of 
political support from any man, living or dead, in return for any cousid- 



eration whatever, other than my promises, made in public and in pri- 
vate, that I would, if elected, faithfully represent the people, and that 
each and every vote cast by me in the Senate of the United States would 
be for the general good — untainted by venality and unstained by selfish 
or personal considerations. The pretense or insinuation, then, that your 
election, or the election of any of you, was brought about by corrupt 
influences, or that, being elected, your votes for Senator were influenced 
by rewards or promises of reward, is an insult to the integrity of the 
honest yeomanry of Nevada, and an outrage of the grossest character 
upon the honorable and high-minded gentlemen who represent them and 
their wishes in the Legislature. Those charges or insinuations are the 
suggestions of dishonest and disappointed men, made through the impei*- 
sonalit} r of certain disreputable newspapers in this and a neighboring 
State. A truthful, pure, independent, and honorable newspaper is a 
necessity to modern civilization. Its true mission is high, noble, and 
ennobling. It is the brave vindicator of the rights of the people — their 
daily monitor, their intelligent advocate, their leader, protector, and 
guide, unpurchased and unpurchasable; but the venal, licentious, cow- 
ardly, libelous, and sneaking "interviewing" sheet, which battens upon 
the abominations of its own creation, and waxes fat upon the indecencies 
which its vile imagination conjures up to defame the just, and which, for 
sordid motives, panders to the depraved taste of the vicious, is a sore 
upon the body politic which sooner or later will have to be removed by 
the scalpel. I believe the verdict of the people at the late election to 
have been the most spontaneous expression of their sentiments ever 
given in Nevada. While I have the honest satisfaction of being able to 
look every citizen of the State boldly in the eye, with the consciousness 
of never having attempted to degrade his citizenship, question his integ- 
rity, or insult his honor, I readily acknowledge that money was used in 
the campaign — but not corruptly. It was used legitimately and right- 
fully. The popular espousal of my candidature alienated men and insti- 
tutions of wealth, power, and influence, who had theretofore been gen- 
erous patrons of the Republican party, and checked numerous sources 
of supply and turned them into channels which flowed into and filled 
the exchequer of the opposition. These powerful influences encouraged 
and promoted discord within the organization; there was peril without; 
there were craft, intimidation, and treachery on every hand, endangering 
alike the success of the party and the interests of the community. 

If, through party and personal zeal, I volunteered to stand in the 
breach caused by the desertion of others, and bear the brunt of the 
fight and the heat and burden of the day, I trust, while I arrogate to 
myself no virtue for so doing, that others will not impute it to me as a 
crime. And, in this connection, it is a notable and noticeable fact that 
it is not charged that any of the money said to have been used was 
furnished by either men or corporations who now ask, or who are likely 
to ask, special legislation or favors at the hands of the National Con- 
gress. 

It is said that money was the corner stone of my candidature. The 
charge is false. Hail I felt that \ny aspirations rested on no better or 
firmer foundation than that, or that I possessed no other claim or quali- 
fication to represent Nevada in the Senate of the nation, I should never 
have contended for the honor, though my riches were incalculable. Let 
him who imagines the popular disposal of that dignity a mere matter of 

2*** 



10 

bargain and sale go and scatter broadcast his pieces from the Wasatch 
to the Sierras; let him heap up his bribes till the Great Basin shall 
overflow; and, my life upon the issue, his gold cannot so innoculate the 
virtue of the people of our State that a single county will return a dele- 
gation to do homage to his presumption. My aspirations rested upon a 
not unnatural faith in my abilities and a confident belief, which almost 
amounted to knowledge, that I shared with the masses their hopes, 
fears, inspirations, and convictions. I felt in my breast the prompting 
of emotions which an unerring instinct told me agitated the bosom of 
the whole community; and it is to the uprising and outpouring of those 
tides of popular feeling alone that I ascribe the sweeping victory 
achieved at the ballot-box. They who saw in the late election nothing 
but the influence of money, or the caprice of public sentiment, misap- 
prehended the moral of the campaign. The action of the people was 
neither sordid nor capricious. The surface of events vibrated and undu- 
lated in conformity with the earnest pulsations of the great heart beneath. 
It was the first low groundswell of an approaching political tempest whose 
tumultuous billows within the current century shall lash this continent 
to its uttermost confines. We live in the noonday of the ages; we are 
passing through the torrid zone of time, surrounded by the whirl and 
rush of mighty political cyclones. The new order of things crowds 
impatiently upon the footsteps of the old. Standing on the receding 
skirts of the giant rebellion of history, we encounter the front of a 
revolution no less colossal. Not one, thank God! to be wrought out by 
the red hand of slaughter. No embittered sections are about to yawn 
apart and form a chasm only to be closed by the nation's best blood and 
treasure. No feud of color is about to seek agreement in one common 
crimson; no sect is about to proclaim the gospel of the cannon; no 
easte to invoke Sir Sword as arbiter. But the people throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, irrespective of race, creed, or condition, 
are about to reassert, in a broader sense, the declaration that govern- 
ments derive their just powers only from the consent of the governed, 
and that all men arc created equal, and demand fulfillment of the spirit 
as well as the letter of the declaration. The one great irrepressible 
conflict that has sounded no truce during the ages, and which will never 
beat a retreat until victory is won, is that of popular rights against 
usurped and unjust authority — the cause of the people against tyranni- 
cal power. Its enemies have overcome it; its champions have aban- 
doned it; its friends have disgraced and endangered it by horrible sat- 
urnalia; its votaries in hecatombs have trod the narrow plank to the 
scaffold, languished and starved in dungeons, and perished in exile; its 
soldiers have, with despairing energy, thrown their naked breasts upon 
the serried bayonets of their foe; in disaster and defeat its banners 
have trailed in the dust. But, defeated, betrayed, and bowed in shame, 
it has never disbanded its forces nor surrendered the principles for 
which it fought. Its citadel is the unconquerable soul of man; the 
cradles of human intelligence are its arsenals; its muster rolls embrace 
the masses of mankind. From generation to generation, from century 
to century, it has struggled on through triumph and defeat, advancing 
with an everlasting persistency toward a complete and final victory. 
Its trophies are the glories of the age. It has torn the badge of serf- 
dom from sixty millions of people in Kussia, and placed them on the 
high plane of manhood and citizenship; it has modified the rigor of 
imperial sway in Germany; it has guaranteed civil and religious liberty 
to Italy; though provoking inevitable reaction by the excesses of the 



11 

revolution and the Commune, it has broken forever the rod of aristo- 
cratic dominion in France — not even the magic name of Napoleon shall 
ever again cause the tri-color to float over an empire; it has driven 
Caesarism from the face of Europe, and its imperial champion to exile 
and death; in England its progress has been sure and steady from the 
time it dealt the first signal blow to the prerogative at JRunnymcde to 
the latest concession to "the green island which hangs at the belt of 
Britain," and the latest extension of the elective franchise; it has, with- 
in our own time, crossed the Pyrenees into slumbering Spain and driven 
one monarch into exile, and now menacingly crowds around the throne 
of her successor. The ancient empire of caste and oppression shall be 
subverted, despite the opposition of dynasties, the weight of empires, 
and the craft of kings. The fiat has gone forth; the handwriting is on 
the wall; no power shall stay its irresistible onward course. It shall 
march on from victory to victory, with dauntless front and stately step, 
until its grand idea shall be crystalized into universal law — that it is the 
prerogative of the people to rule, and that freedom and equality arc the 
birthright of mankind. 

In our own country its theories were made the fundamental principles 
of government. " We, the people of the United States," so runs the 
national ordinance, "in order to form a more perfect union, establish 
justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain 
and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The 
sovereign authority still rests with "We, the people." All legislative, 
executive, and judicial power is only delegated, to be regathered into the 
hands that granted it whenever the people shall consider their trust 
abused. And it is a general awakening to the conviction that the spirit, 
if not the letter of our national charter is being violated, that is arous- 
ing the people to the necessity of reasserting their sovereign authority. 
The alarming abuses are not executive usurpations, legislative encroach- 
ments, nor judicial servility, affecting the life and liberty of the citizen. 
Such outrages would find a speedy and complete redress at the hands of 
forty millions of freemen. But the personal freedom and security of the 
citizen may be respected, and yet his rights be grievously violated. Into 
our Government, wearing the broad phylactery of constitutional sanc- 
tity, and bearing the impenetrable shield of legality, have crept practices 
which, though constitutional, are not right, and though legal, are not 
just. The power of money — the power of leagued and corporate wealth, 
confederated under legal forms for purposes of public plunder and self- 
aggrandizement — has arrayed itself in antagonism to the rights and 
welfare of the people, has gained a dangerous influence in governmental 
matters, and is arbitrarily exercising its control over nearly all the 
material interests of the country. The public domain — the freehold of 
the people — is lavishly given over to grasping corporations. The public 
treasure — the common property of all — is donated them in more than 
princely subsidies. By charters, framed to their bidding, they are 
empowered to extort, monopolize, and discriminate at will. Their grasp is 
upon every community, restricting the healthful currents of trade, para- 
lyzing the free action of industry, and thwarting the popular will in the 
choice of representatives. Is it to he wondered that such a state of affairs 
should excite the alarm, indignation, and resentment of a people, every 
one of whom believes that he has an equal interest in the commonwealth, an 
equal claim to its consideration, and an equal right to pursue his avoca- 
tions unmolested, and to make his political choice heard? The farmer, 



12 

who from his scanty savings pays for his modest quarter section of land, 
fails to discover a just reason why a thousand times as much of the pub- 
lic domain should he gratuitously ceded to men a thousandfold more able 
to pay for it; the humble taxpayer, who year after year gives over to the 
Government the tithes of his earnings without hope of any other return 
than protection to his person and property, fails to discover a just rea- 
son why his hard-earned dollars should be taken from the public treasury 
and given in subsid}' to men whose wealth is almost fabulous compared 
to his own; the tradesman, mechanic, and laborer can discover no just 
reason why Government should empower men to discriminate against 
them — the masses no just reason why their voice in the election of rep- 
resentatives should be overruled by a wealth and power unjustly wrung 
from themselves. These injustices were not foreseen nor contemplated 
when our Government was ordained, and will not be endured by a people 
having the power to rectify them and deserving to be free. In the grim 
presence of the rebellion, when every nerve and sinew was strung to 
preserve the national life and unity, and during the subsequent years 
while the Government walked unsteadily over ground upturned by the 
fiery plowshare of revolution, the lesser evils were suffered to fester 
and ripen unheeded. But the time has now come to remedy them. I 
mistake the significance of the murmurs which I hear arising with ever 
increasing volume from every quarter of the republic — I impeach my 
heart of misinterpretation of the popular voice — if I do not discover in 
them the foresoundings of a solemn, universal declaration which shall re- 
verberate throughout the commonwealth: We, the people, do ordain that 
the national soil and treasure shall not be squandered in subsidies, that the 
public land shall be donated to actual settlers only, and in limited quanti- 
ties, and that the residue not so entered upon shall be held by us in trust 
as a legacy for those who may come after us; that the citizen be taxed 
for no purpose but protection to his person and property; that the chan- 
nels of communication and highways of commerce shall be the property 
of the nation, in order that the distributing forces of the country, which 
are indispensable to the civilization of the age, and to the welfare, hap- 
piness, and prosperity of the people, shall not be concentered in the 
hands of the few, but that they may be practically as well as legally 
accessible to all, and free from any discriminations or partiality. In 
that declaration no voice will join more heartily than mine. No public 
servant will make that mandate more absolutely his rule of conduct than 
myself. As a Senator of the nation I will not vote for the appropria- 
tion of a dollar out of the public treasury, except for the maintenance 
of the public faith and credit, and for purely governmental purposes and 
the attainment of the objects for which this Government was created. 
I will not vote for a subsidy of land, money, bonds, or credit to either 
individuals or corporations. I will not vote for any hot bed scheme for 
"the development of our resources," because I believe their development 
to be more healthful when made solely by private enterprise, under the 
all-sufficient stimulus of private interest; and 1 further believe that such 
propositions are not generally made for the public good, but in the 
interest of public plunderers. I will vote, if opportunity offer, for 
extending universal amnesty to all engaged in the late rebellion. In the 
plenitude of its power, the Government can afford to be magnanimous. 
I will vote for any bill to regulate, equalize, and reduce freights and tares 
on any and all roads (especially those built in whole or in part by Gov- 
ernment subsidy) that shall seem to me just, equitable, and effectual. I 



13 

will vote tor a reduction of the tariff on all articles now subject to its 
provisions until it shall reach the lowest possiblo point consistent with 
the public credit; and I believe that an immediate reduction thereof 
would increase rather than diminish the public revenue. Although I 
have not given the subject that attention its magnitude demands, which 
debars me from expressing a decided opinion upon it, yet my impressions 
ai'e that the Government should, on equitable terms, acquire possession 
of the telegraph lines and control the telegraphic business of the coun- 
try, incorporating it with the postal system. 1 will not at this time 
present any of the reasons of the political economists for voting as 
indicated on the propositions referred to. To act otherwise would, in 
my opinion, aid in destroying those great principles of equality and justice 
which inspired the Declaration of Independence, and are the only suro 
foundations of republican government. 

I promised all this in the late canvass; but I am aware that unfriendly 
tongues have been busy in construing my pledges as the crafty springes 
of an ambitious demagogue, who fawns upon the people for their favor 
and repays their trust with wanton violation of his promises. If I were 
capable of such turpitude, I should be silent now. But here, with the 
coveted honor securely resting upon my brow — here, where even malice 
can impute to me no motive for dissimulation; here, where any promise 
that did not originate in an earnest purpose of fulfillment would be a 
gratuitous and voluntary perjury — I desire to reaffirm every pledge 
made by me during the campaign of irreconcilable hostility to the power 
and purposes of the monopolists and of unalterable fidelity to the inter- 
ests of the people. I am impelled to do this in justice to the people and 
to avert false judgment of myself. It is a propensity of human nature 
to expect an immediate remedy for acknowledged evils; but by a law 
of necessity reforms are seldom able to keep pace with the popular desire. 
In the long journey through the wilderness which stretches between 
the house of bondage and the land of promise, the people are apt to 
murmur against the incapacity or treachery of those delegated to con- 
duct the weary pilgrimage. It is impossible for me to specify more 
fully the measures I will support or oppose, because many of the ques- 
tions with which I shall be called upon to deal yet sleep in the obscure 
lap of the future. But this I do know — and this is the assurance I 
would have my constituents hold patiently and undisturbed, however 
long I may sit in the National Capitol voiceless at the gate of absent 
opportunity — that whenever an issue arises in which the interests of 
the people rest in the one scale and aught that conflicts with them in 
the other, though riches and honors were heaped mountain high to 
reward my support of the anti-popular side, my voice and my vote shall 
be given for the cause of the people, though that voice be echoless and 
that vote alone. I trust I shall never forget that, as a Senator of the 
great republic, my paramount duty will be to aid in upholding and 
advancing the dignity, honor, and glory of our common country at 
home and abroad, that the national ensign may be honored and 
respected on every land and sea — not alone because it represents power, 
but because it is the emblem and standard of a grand civilization based 
upon freedom, justice, and equality. Next to this, I recognize the obli- 
gation to devote my undivided energies to the promotion of the material 
interests and prosperity of the State and people who have conferred 
upon me so much honor, and to whom I shall ever owe the most pro- 
found gratitude. Should I ever pursue a wrong course, through imper- 



14 

feet knowledge or a fault of judgment, I shall hasten to correct my 
error when it is proved such by better lights and a clearer vision. I 
will never persevere in the wrong to sustain a character for consistency. 
With such a purpose I go forth to discharge the duties of the high 
office with which you have invested me. It is not unlikely that I may 
come short of your wishes through lack of ability, but I have no fear 
but my fidelity shall wear the badge of your approval. But, whatever 
achievements or failures await me — whether I shall render up my stew- 
ardship with your favor or disapprobation — I shall strive for high and 
honorable aims; I shall battle with all the ardor of my nature; I shall 
bear true allegiance to my sovereign masters — the people. 



/I/ 



